Thank you for your thoughts but I think this discussion has come to the end of its road. I hope to come across you in another discussion forum. Since Scotland released the Lockerbie bomber today out of compassion for the fact that he is dying of cancer, will this be the new row between Americans and Brits? The American families of the victims seem incandescent with rage whilst the British families seem a lot more forgiving and are only sorry because they feel they will now never get to the bottom of it all. Christian forgiveness? (By the way, Hitler was a Catholic and said he thought he was doing the will of the Almighty Creator.)

Anyway, I really do hope that you guys find a decent health care solution that satisfies everyone. Lots of luck. Nice to have met you.

http://www.byzcath.org/forums/ubbthreads.php/topics/330302/Health%20Care%20in%20Canada%20Implodin

This article illustrates what I’ve said on this blog; that we need to consider many options in creating a HC plan. Tort reform, deregualtion of the Insurance co.s, vouchers, etc. etc. The liberals as usual, want no deliberation, no compromise or variation from the bill they proposed without anyones imput but their own. So much for democracy in America…

(One thing Canadians may want to look at in the Obama plan is spending multi-millions of H.Care $$ on bike trails & farmer markets).

75-80% of Americans believe in a Creator. The only experience they have of atheism,as a group, and it’s contributions to this country are that they are less free to speak their heart. In regard to atheism’s contributions, as a group of believers, to history & humanity…their atrocities & piles of dead bodies have surpassed all the world’s religions put together(overtime). Atheists accomplished this more efficently & in a shorter time than any other belief system in the world. Not believing in a Higher Authorty, it seems, has made that accomplishment much easier to achieve. So wheather there is a God or not,the idea at least, seems to put a thicker veneer of decorum/restraint over the reptilean braincore of mankind. Hitler,Stalin,Mao,Pol Pot & others removed that veneer to the detremate of the world. I’m part Native American- creation is all I need to believe in a creator of wonders…I believe as many 1st Nation people do, that Jesus is the author of these wonders. Some of Jesus’ most truest words were; “the world hated/rejected me & it will hate/reject you, who strive to follow & believe in me.
Obama sounds good but he is not my savior. He only talks in general terms. If you listen to him with as critical a mind as you’ve applied to the Bible, then you would find many more contradictions, with even less words. Obama’s rousing phrases,a few times,did impress me but the lies turned me off along with his Chicago style politics. He’s been as general,vague & foggy on presenting his HC plan to the people, as he was in his campaigning and his presidency in general. As an English teacher I would challenge you to ’surf up’ his HC bill and read a few pages. You might think I’m a poor writer but the Plan is from another planet language. Obama never defines details specifically on much of anything. The HC plan is bad law because no one will understand how to implement it. I’m suspicious of man who can’t or won’t explain a plan he has for me but also won’t be submitting to it himself and no one has spoken specifically/convincingly of what it doe’s say.

Right, let’s get on to some of the issues you raised. I can’t make out your attitude to Obama. Did you vote for him? I’m guessing not. Here in England we were thrilled that America had had the courage to vote him in. Believe me, he is your saviour. Britain and Europe are right behind him and I bet Russia is pretty scared because you’ve got an intelligent and decent man at the helm for a change. I feel that it’s sad that he has had to soft-pedal his association with the New Party and Bill Ayers. It wouldn’t be an issue here. The New Party seems pretty inocuous and even to be applauded since it wants to break the stranglehold that corporate money has over your political process. It’s the sort of group you tend to associate with when you’re young. And Ayers is the sort of person that many people would have come into contact with as they move through life. Can’t any better dirt be dug on him? Shows the measure of the opposition’s desperation.

This brings me to the way most Americans link communism with socialism and spit these words out in one breath. They are not the same. We currently have a socialist government, the Labour Party, which has been voted back in 3 times in the last 12 years. Tony Blair – who seems a pretty popular figure in the States – is a socialist and was Labour’s leader for some years until he fell from grace because he took us into the Iraq war. The country never forgave him and he has given up his position as prime minister to Gordon Brown. Until this row with you guys over the NHS, it looked as though they would crash out in the next election and lose to the Conservatives (also known as the Tories) but the country has suddenly woken up to the fact that the Tories might dismantle the NHS and that might swing us back to Labour again. Personally, I’ve been a moderate socialist all my life; how could I be anything else when their welfare state gave me the NHS and enabled me to go to university?

By the way, wasn’t the world economic crisis caused by extraordinarily greedy bankers not President Obama? We’ve used billions of public money to bail them out over here and they’re still giving themselves ginormous bonuses. The steam is coming out of our ears and our Chancellor (the money minister) is about to pass laws to stop them – with everyone’s full blessing.

You spoke about your murdered friend and asked about KGB agents in Eastern Europe. We lived in a hotel in Moscow and every floor had a “key-lady” whom we all believed was sitting there to report on the movements of foreigners. All foreign businesses in Moscow had to employ Russian secretaries and chauffeurs etc and these were also expected to report back to the KGB. We were all quite relaxed about it (my husband worked for a British computer firm) and accepted it as part of the “game”. For the Russians, it was part of their life-style; everyone was expected to tell tales on everyone else. I really don’t think that the KGB went out of their way to take revenge on your friend just because he said something rude about the USSR – they’d have to take out most of the world otherwise! But Bulgaria was and still is a very thuggy place, full of violent criminals and mafiosi and I can’t help but think that your friend was killed by a criminal gang. The KGB would have done a cleaner job.

I’m interested that you say that “Animal Farm” is beginning to sell well. Who is buying it? Is it the rightwingers who think that the book is bashing communism? If so, they’ll be wrong although I expect they’ll read into it whatever they want to read. George Orwell was a socialist who was horrified at the way Stalin took over and perverted communism. He said that his book was anti-Stalin. He admired Marx and Trotsky. Old Major is an attractive character who represents Marx and he formulates the communist philosophy, encouraging the animals to revolt against their terrible conditions. Snowball is Trotsky; he is a good pig who tries to help the other animals in the early days after their revolution but is chased out of the farm by Napoleon (Stalin). The other local human farmers represent the filthy capitalist “pigs” of Europe and America (so the book is also attacking capitalism) and, at the end of the book, the poor animals are looking through the window as the farmers and the pigs socialise together and they can’t tell the difference between them. Orwell is claiming that democratic socialism is the only answer and that communism was destroyed by its appalling and greedy rulers not because it was a bad idea. I’m an English teacher and I know whereof I speak.

We don’t seem to worry about Reds under the Beds here in England. Communism never took off amongst the working-class here, perhaps because we had an active socialism. If anyone mentions that they’re a member of the Communist Party (and they’re not afraid to do so here) it will hardly raise an eyebrow. We might expect them to have some interesting views, but, hey, I might disagree with what you say but I shall defend to the last your right to say it etc etc. (Chief tenet of democracy). And don’t get me started on Guantanamo Bay. That place totally goes against Magna Carta and its writ of “habeas corpus” which said that no man should be imprisoned without a fair trial. This was because in England at the time people were being thrown into prison and never saw the light of day again. Ring any bells? Guantanamo and McCarthyism are your 2 great shames ot the last century.

There is one incident in Moscow that I regret being involved in. I was the English teacher to the upper grades at the Anglo-American School which was made up of 32 nationalities from the embassies, but mainly British and American. One year, I had an eighth grade that was made up of a lively bunch of American boys and one Canadian. There wasn’t much for them to do and they would often go and socialise with the young men over at the Marine House. One day they came into my lesson laughing over the posters stuck up on the Marine House wall which showed American troops striking dramatic postures alonside wording such as “Better Dead Than Red”. Aha, I thought. Cue a lesson topic. We read Tennyson’s poem “The Charge of te Light Brigade” which recounts an historic charge made by the British Light Brigade mounted on horses and armed only with swords against the Russian guns during the Crimean War:
“Theirs not to reason why; theirs but to do and die.”
Of course, most of them were killed and we discussed how a soldier has to be brainwashed in order to be a good soldier and made a comparison with the marines’ posters. After much intelligent discussion, they decided that they would rather be Red than dead. The next day they came into school with black eyes and cut lips because they had decided to report their conclusions to the Marines. I was quite disgusted with the young men for picking on 14 year olds, but, at the time, I lacked a certain understanding of the situation. You see, the marines were Vietnam vets. It was the middle of the war at the time. We were mostly cut off from outside news and I don’t think that anyone, even the American public, realised what these young men had been going through. If I met them today, I would apologise to them for unintentionally encouraging my pupils to attack everything that had kept them going through all those horrors.

Well, it’s a cup of tea that keeps me going in life. Just off to make one. All this typing is hard work.

Jane I’m retired and was raised in the “duck & cover” cold war era. I had a friend many years ago, we used to hang out in an ole barn & create sculptures while our friends partied & watched the creative process. My friend used to make anti-war themed creations. A big city newspaper got wind of him & did a story about him. In the article they quoted him on comments he made about the cold war & some negative references about the USSR. About a year later he recieved a letter to come to an international art competion being held in Bulgaria. He was very excited & happy about it. There hee was brutally murdered (I mean brutal & bizarrly) in a hotel…actually he fought desperately and jumped out a window to escape being stabbed anymore. I understand (I read later)that every hotel in the USSR & satelite countries has a KGB implant among the hotel staff. I’ve also read that KGB spy’s that were stationed in America had a term for westerners soft on socialism/communism…I’d type it but this is a liberal blog and very prone to censorship…the term is not flattering.

Do you really think that the West didn’t know all this stuff anyway? Whose pawn is he? He was doing quite well until he began to talk about God, seeming to conclude that the only thing that can save America is religion. Because communism denied Russians the right to practise Christianity, they became over-sentimental about it. Perhaps he really did believe that God is the solution or perhaps he was a tool of the religious right. Who knows?

And do you really think that the West sat innocently by and let all this propaganda, spying and infiltration happen to them without doing the same themselves? Of course not. We’re as bad as the Russians on all levels. It’s a game that all countries play with each other, even with their allies. Sadly, one of my friends in Moscow was horribly murdered by the KGB. I thought he was just an English businessman, but it turned out he was spying for the British Government.

Re propaganda: when I was young, I remember reading a book called “The Hidden Persauders” which was about the way advertisers manipulate language to persuade us to buy their goods. Part of the English course in British schools – possibly instigated by this book – is the study of persuasive language in adverts, brochures, fliers, charity appeals, newspapers etc. For instance, they will look at two daily newspapers and study how each presents the same story. The agenda of each newspaper is studied and the kids work out how the writers are trying to persuade you that what they are saying is true and right. This type of thing is studied over five years from 11 to 16. Perhaps this is why the Brits seem less susceptible to garbage than the Americans.

Re a nuclear war. One of the most frightening moments of my young life was when Kennedy and Kruschev stood nose to nose and threatened to press the nuclear button during the Cuban missile crisis. I remember thinking: “We’re all going to die, ” and truly believing it. I was in the middle of some really important exams and I stopped revising for 3 days because I couln’t see the point. By the way, we had all received government leaflets on what to do when the bomb dropped. Pretty useless info really. We all had to get under the stairs with enough food and water for 2 weeks with a mattress covering the entrance and UNDER NO CIRCUMSTANCES were we to emerge for 2 weeks. I decided that when the 4 minute warning went off, I would stand in the street and wait to be blown away.

Russia, by the way, has grown up since those days. It has realised that you don’t have to invade a country or threaten them with your nuclear warheads in order to dominate the world. It has, amongst other things, vast supplies of natural gas. It already has pipelines running across Europe, supplying gas to most countries including Britain. They only have to threaten to turn off the gas and they’ve got us. Russia has already played this game with one Eastern European country last year and were quite successful in their blackmail.

Got to make the evening meal now. Life goes on.

http://www.youtube.com/view_play_list?p=F5863E552BBF1AC3

If the link does’nt appear on the blog, just lookup all the listings on Youtube for the former Soviet Spy; Thomas Schuman- Subversion Lectures (video section).
Hope you find it as interesting as I did !

((P.S. Things are changing fast on the HealthCare issue here…Obama may have bungled away much of his political ‘capital’ in his handling of this issue and other things)).